Flute And Violin (e-book) (used book) | James Lane Allen | bookbook.eu

Description

Contents:

Flute and Violin
King Solomon of Kentucky
Two Gentlemen of Kentucky
The White Cowl
Sister Dolorosa
Posthumous Fame

These tales were published a few years ago. Since then, although not left like unturned stones, but kept constantly rolling, they have nevertheless gathered their moss: those stories that take root on earlier stories, those small fictions that rapidly spread over other small fictions and conceal them. Thus, in certain quarters, it has been told and believed that the actual experience of a young Kentucky monk is laid bare in " The White Cowl"; that a well-known original furnished the portrait of the nun in " Sister Dolorosa "; that a tragic incident, saddening the career of a famous American sculptor, formed the basis of the romance entitled " Posthumous Fame."

The story, " King Solomon of Kentucky,'' is founded upon facts - upon many facts. The existence of an old vagabond and hero, who once went by that name, the selling of him for vagrancy, the cholera, the grave-digging and all that. Scarce the name of a character or a line of description in this tale but was taken from the local history of the time.

The story, "Two Gentlemen of Kentucky," has a good deal of actuality behind it - biographical actuality. There once lived on a blue-grass farm, in slave times, an old negro preacher named Peter Cotton, though possibly he might better have been called Peter Wool ; comforting him was a consort named Phyllis. As a matter of record he besought his mistress to embroider texts of Scripture on the tails of his Sunday coat, and his mistress obliged him- so romantic often is reality. The books mentioned in the story as those he cared for were in truth Peter's books. He was a good gospel preacher as well as a good marrying preacher a double qualification much insisted on, one hears, among the people of his race, and perhaps not duly regarded by the occupants of " white pulpits "; that is, he divided his time fairly between wedding his sinners to Heaven and marrying them to each other.

In looking over these tales, written several years ago, the author feels like one who goes back to walk across a land that he inhabits no longer. They have for him the silence of overgrown pathways, along which feet pass never again.